David Dunn

The Sound of Light in Trees: The Acoustic Ecology of Pinyon Pines

Source Sound Files and Sonograms

The Sound of Light in Trees is a soundscape composition, in which David Dunn created a composite aural portrait of the acoustic world inside a pinyon pine. Here, we share some individual sound files that provide a clearer listen to the acoustic behaviors that Dunn discovered.

Audio is presented as streaming MP3 for good resolution;high speed connection is recommendedDial-up connection will require extremely long load times for audio playback

In each sonogram, the top, black and white image shows the relative amplitude of the sound across time; longer vertical lines indicate a louder sound. The bottom, color image shows the relative mix of frequencies of the sound charted in the top panel.

We have reduced the size of the sonogram images to faciliated faster online viewing; the beetle chirps are reproduced a bit larger to show subtle details revealed in the short, highly magnified sonograms (the sonograms do not correspond to the sound files in this case, as we wanted to show the detailed sonic structure of minute segments of the chirps). In shrinking, the units are difficult to read, so we begin by reproducing the two key scales at a larger size.

Color Scale
Shows the intensity of sound at the given time and frequency

Vertical Scale
Frequency of the sound charted; at any given frequency (horizontal line across sonogram), the color shows the intensity of sound

Uninfested Tree60 seconds

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Beetle Chirp 11412 ms / 1.4 seconds

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Beetle Chirp 27431ms / 7.4 seconds

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Beetle Chirp 31995 ms / 2 seconds

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Beetle Group 163 seconds

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Beetle Group 262 seconds

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Beetle Group 363 seconds

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Beetle Group 463 seconds

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Round headed woodborer
45738ms / 45.7 seconds

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Incidental sounds
60 seconds

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